Editorial - Beam day

Today, after more than a decade of meticulous preparation in the high-energy physics world—in theoretical frameworks, detector research and development, site construction, data simulations, analysis software, distributed computing infrastructures, networks and more—CERN’s Large Hadron Collider proton beam turns on and will begin circulating through its entire 27-km length.

International Science Grid This Week congratulates the scientists, engineers, technicians, software developers, managers, coordinators, students, secretaries and all the other hard-working, talented and dedicated participants whose effort made this happen. The sheer volume of data that the LHC experiments will need to process became the driving force for developing the World-wide LHC Grid (wLCG), and hence Enabling Grids for E-SciencE (EGEE) in Europe and Open Science Grid in the United States. iSGTW celebrates with them, and thanks them, as this publication is an offspring of that collaboration.

Feature - Podcasting from Beam Day

Live (almost) video from the startup!

Up-to-the-moment podcast interviews from the control rooms of the experiments, as the events occur.

Hear what physicists, engineers, computer scientists have to say from ALICE, ATLAS, CMS as the countdown to the startup goes from the tinal days to the final hours to the final minutes—and the final seconds.

Feature - Profile

Behind the grid: Wesley Smith

His job?

To throw away 99.999 percent of what the detectors find.

Looking for rare and elusive particles is like looking for a needle in a haystack, only with multiple haystacks. So, Smith says he wants to remove as much hay as possible, without losing any needles . . .

Link of the week

What's goin’ on . . .

We all know about the event at CERN, but what else is happening to mark this event?

That is where LHC First Beam Events comes in—and you can find out about things such as Fermilab’s "Pajama Party," where it was 2:00 in the morning in Batavia, Illinois, when the LHC fired up.

Image of the week

ATLAS

In ancient Greek mythology, Atlas supported the Earth. At CERN, ATLAS stands for “A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS,” and its job is equally big, requiring a really big picture to take it all in . . .